Peace & Security Highlights
Peace & Security Grantee Highlights 2009 – 2010
The Institute for State Effectiveness
The Institute for State Effectiveness (ISE) has the goal of helping to reform the currently fragmented international system of post-conflict development to make it more locally driven and effective. Current international practice often relies on deploying consultants to design and run programs abroad, sometimes resulting in parallel institutions that can undermine local capacity. ISE works to build local institutions and systems that will work effectively with international donors to carry forward programs on a sustainable basis. A Compton grant to ISE supports the creation of a manual with case studies on establishing security in post-conflict states, informed by a knowledge distilled from the security sector reform field and ISE’s experiences with local actors worldwide. The manual will provide the basis for a set of training courses and a peer-to-peer learning network, in order to produce strong local institutions to protect civilians around the world.
Human Rights Center
In the last two decades, many countries emerging from war have experimented with different forms of transitional justice, including truth and reconciliation commissions, trials, traditional justice mechanisms, reparations to victims, creation of museums and memorials, and policies for security sector reform and reintegration of ex-combatants. While this has been a period of great innovation, too little is known about what really works to heal the damage of war and prevent future violence. A Compton grant to the Human Rights Center at the University of California-Berkeley, partnering with South Africa’s Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, will produce a special issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice on evaluation of transitional justice efforts. The cross-disciplinary volume aims to help policymakers and practitioners better understand how to help post-conflict countries heal the trauma of war and create a durable peace.
The Bureau for International Reporting, Inc.
As television networks and newspapers eliminate foreign correspondents in order to save money, the public and policymakers are deprived of a critical source of information and understanding about foreign policy in general, and post-conflict issues more specifically. Nonprofit reporting organizations are beginning to fill this critical need for more and better international reporting on the ground. The Bureau for International Reporting, Inc., a Compton grantee, is an exciting new venture producing high quality news coverage on post-conflict issues and broadcasting it on prominent television outlets, as well as through online platforms. The BIR magnifies the impact of its stories through public screenings and briefings for the foreign policy community.
Search for Common Ground and Child Soldiers Initiative
With support from Compton Foundation, Search for Common Ground has joined with the Child Soldiers Initiative led by Lt. General, the Hon. Roméo Dallaire (Ret’d), to successfully convene a unique gathering of military and civilian representatives working together to identify more effective ways to address the tragedy of child soldiers. This project brings together an unusually broad-based group of military experts, academics, child protection advocates, UN officials, human rights and humanitarian NGOs, and government representatives. The project is building partnerships, fostering the development of training materials, and creating a handbook that can be used by policymakers and practitioners to increase the protection of children in war zones.
Ashoka
Ashoka is the leading international organization identifying and connecting social entrepreneurs pioneering new solutions to the world’s problems. Ashoka is now focusing on supporting social entrepreneurs with innovative approaches to building peace, reducing violent conflict, and promoting tolerance in our world. A Compton grant is providing seed funds for the AshokaPeace Blog, a new on-line platform to help practitioners and thought leaders exchange ideas, highlight innovative solutions, and collaborate to improve peacebuilding practice, as well as educate donors and the public about entrepreneurial approaches to peace.
Environmental Law Institute
Armed conflict is often inextricably intertwined with the environment. Competition over scarce resources can contribute to violence, and exploitation of valuable resources can fund armed conflict. Natural resource sharing, on the other hand, can facilitate post-conflict peacebuilding and create jobs for demobilized soldiers and other citizens in struggling post-conflict countries. A Compton grant to the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) supports a multidisciplinary project to more fully understand the complex interaction between natural resources and conflict. ELI, in partnership with the UN Environment Programme and other environmental and conflict experts, will evaluate the successes, failures, and lessons learned from natural resource management efforts to support peacebuilding. The project will generate a multivolume report and provide guidance to UN agencies and others responsible for post-conflict recovery.
Art & Peace Grantee Highlights 2009 – 2010
The Aftermath Project
The Aftermath Project seeks to tell “the other half of the story,” of what happens after war officially ends. Aftermath sponsors an annual competition that awards grants to photographers around the world to tell the post-conflict stories rarely covered in the media, which tends to move on to other hot spots after the major fighting has stopped. Aftermath was founded by Sara Terry, a photographer who became impassioned about the need to tell these stories when she photographed “the aftermath” of the war in Bosnia. This young project strives to engage the public in dialogue about these issues through an annual publication, exhibitions, and lectures. With Compton support, the project movingly reminds us of the importance of understanding and addressing the needs of citizens struggling to recover from the devastation of war.
Feinstein International Center at Tufts University
The arts can provide a unique and important path to peace and reconciliation. With a grant from Compton Foundation, the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University is working in northern Uganda to support local communities’ use of dance, theater, storytelling, singing, and other art forms to promote accountability, reparations, and healing for war-affected citizens in that country. This project, led by Dyan Mazurana, recognizes that people’s traditional arts can be a powerful force in their progress toward those goals.
